Sunday, March 29, 2015

As anyone who follows me on Twitter will know, Saturday 28th March saw the conference M.R.James and the Modern Ghost Story at the Leeds Library. I attended as one of the plenary speakers, with a paper about the demonology of Canon Alberic's Scrap-book, which is rather a favourite topic of mine!

I'm going to be doing a full write-up of the conference for the M.R.James Ghosts and Scholars Newsletter, so I'm not going to review it in detail here on my blog. I'd love to share a few photographs though, and pick up on a few things I have been asked about.

The conference was organised by Professor Jim Mussell of the University of Leeds, Jane Mainley-Piddock (who initially approached me to ask me to take part) and Dr. Dewi Evans. At the end of the conference, which was hugely enjoyable, many people were asking whether there would be another in the future, so if you know one of these academics, make sure to get them drunk and extract a promise that there will indeed be another one!

The event took place at the Leeds Library, pictured left. I had only ever been to Leeds once before in my life, for the Leeds Book Awards 2011, for which The Glass Demon was shortlisted. So I knew nothing about the Leeds Library before I got there. Leeds has a "regular" library, the Leeds Central Library; this one is something different altogether. Founded in 1768, it is run by subscription (and is also a charity) and houses a large collection of books, many of them antiquarian volumes, in a gorgeous old building. It was the perfect setting for a conference about the ghost stories of M.R.James, which abound in creepy old books and unwary academics!

If you are interested in learning more about the Leeds Library (or indeed if you live in Leeds and would like to join it), you can find their website here: http://www.theleedslibrary.org.uk

It included three keynote speeches, from Professor Roger Luckhurst, Professor Darryl Jones and myself. In addition there were parallel sessions in both morning and afternoon at which a variety of papers were presented ranging on topics as diverse as the cinematography of M.R.James and adapting James's work into graphic stories. At the end of the conference there was a wine reception, followed by a showing of A Warning to the Curious, and a discussion with director Lawrence Gordon Clark.

Above: Matthew Kilburn talks to Lawrence Gordon Clark.

Amongst other attendees I was delighted to see Will and Mike of A Podcast to the Curious, the brilliant podcast series devoted to the work of M.R.James. The guys interviewed me at the very end of the day, so there will be something from me on the podcast soon, no doubt alongside their impressions of this very enjoyable day.

Above: thrilled to discover that the guys from A Podcast to the Curious really do exist in real life!

One or two people asked about my books; of my six novels published to date, the "Jamesian" one is The Glass Demon, which came out in 2010. It was inspired by the true story of M.R.James and the lost stained glass windows of Steinfeld Abbey. M.R.James and his German correspondent Father Nikola Reinartz are mentioned in the acknowledgements to that book! I also write ghost stories, some of which have a Jamesian flavour. My prequel to MRJ's A Neighbour's Landmark, a story entitled The Third Time, recently appeared in the Ghosts and Scholars Book of Shadows Volume 2, and will be reprinted in the upcoming (and perhaps more affordable) Best British Horror 2015, out in May.

You can find many of the tweets about the conference (including photos) by searching Twitter for #Mezzotweet!

Finally, I would like to offer a huge THANK YOU to a Good Samaritan! On Friday, when I had just started out for the railway station at Dunblane for my journey down to Leeds, I managed to damage our car (I'm not posting details because what I did was too embarrassingly stupid, but nothing was hurt except my pride). Envisioning missing my train connections and either not making the conference or having to fork out for a new ticket, I was pretty much having hysterics at the side of the road when a complete stranger drew up, and having heard the sorry tale, offered to drive me to Dunblane station on the spot. This is a round trip of over thirty miles, and it was an incredibly kind offer. Without her assistance, I might not have been at the conference at all. So thank you very, very much, Mairi of Crieff!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

The very lucky winner is Sophie Jordan of Northumberland! Congratulations, Sophie!

Sophie wins a huge grand prize of signed books by over thirty YA authors who write and live in the UK, including my very latest thriller, Urban Legends. As Urban Legends is set in and around Brussels, how better to enjoy some scary serial-killer action than by curling up on the sofa with a mug of steaming hot chocolate, Belgian choc flavour? So I'm sending Sophie a sachet of that too.

Urban Legends is the Scottish Book Trust Teens' Book of the Month for April 2015, so in honour of this they are giving away five signed copies. Check the link for details! Competition closes on 30th April.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

After three years of climbing bell-towers, grubbing about in sewers and catacombs, exploring abandoned buildings and then writing it all down, my Forbidden Spaces trilogy is nearly complete.

On 26th March the third and final book Urban Legends is being published. I'm celebrating at Blackwell's in Edinburgh that week if any of my blog readers are able to come to that (if hearing me talk about serial killers and urbex isn't a sufficient attraction, there is also going to be wine). For my readers in Belgium, where the book is set, I hope to have an event in Brussels and/or Tervuren later in the year. I'll post details here and on Twitter, FB, etc.

I've got a super blog tour lined up for publication week! I'm being interviewed by the Author Allsorts and telling all to the Scottish Book Trust as part of their Author Confessions series, as well as blogging for Hive.

I'll be featured on the Bookwitch's blog https://bookwitch.wordpress.com on Thursday 26th with some exciting photos (Bookwitch will also be covering the launch event and reviewing the book, so look out for those posts too)!

During the week there will also be some fabulous giveaways! For daily updates on all these activities see my posts on Twitter at @helengrantsays

One thing I haven't covered in those blog posts is a question I get asked fairly frequently: do you have to read all the Forbidden Spaces books in chronological order? The answer is no. The books do follow on from one another, but I have aimed to put enough back story in that it is possible to read each of them without reading the others. I'd like to think though that anyone who reads Silent Saturday will be intrigued enough by the unanswered question at the end to go and read the other books!

Veerle De Keyser, the heroine of Forbidden Spaces, is my favourite heroine of all my books, so I also hope readers will be interested in what happens to her and how her story ends on the last page of Urban Legends. I've shared her adventures in a small way, because I researched nearly all the locations I used in the trilogy by actually visiting them myself (thankfully without being chased by any serial killers). I'm also thrilled to have written a trilogy set in Flanders, because I loved living there, and it makes me feel as though I have a kind of souvenir of those three years.

I've thanked all the friends in Flanders who helped with the books in the acknowledgements at the back of each of them, but I'd like to do it again here. They have at various times picked me up from the airport, let me stay in their spare rooms, driven me to different parts of Belgium, advised me on questions of Flemish language and culture, and brought me bottles of bessenjenever (Flemish berry gin). Thank you and dank u wel!

Urban Legends can be pre-ordered on Amazon and also on Hive, and you can find the book on Goodreads here if you'd like to read reviews in due course, or post one of your own. It goes without saying that reader reviews are always hugely appreciated by authors (especially if they are kind ones!).

1. Do you love the ghost stories of M.R.James?
2. Do you live within travelling distance of Leeds?
3. Are you free on March 28th 2015?

If the answer to all those questions is YES this may be an event for you! It's a one day conference on the theme of M.R.James and the modern ghost story, being organised by the University of Leeds and taking place in the Leeds Library.

I'm very excited about this because it's a unique opportunity to examine James's work, covering topics as diverse as Monsters, monuments & unhomely houses: architecture in the work of M.R.James (Ralph Harrington) and Adapting James’s work into graphic stories (John Reppion). I'll also be there as one of the three keynote speakers, talking about one of my very favourite MRJ tales, Canon Alberic's Scrap-book. I can promise pictures, too! - though hopefully no sepia drawings accompanied by demons.

You can register for the conference online here: https://mrjconference.wordpress.com/registration/ but only up to 13th March (after which time, presumably, you have to apply in runes or some such thing).
If you're coming and want to see the film in the evening, take care to select that option when you register.

If you're on Twitter, you can also follow organisers @jmainpidd @jimmussell and @GothicTexts for updates and general ghostly and Gothic shenanigans!